Old habits die hard, and new mediums permit one to feed them easily.

When time and a busy schedule of in-person basketball permitted this past week, I tried to follow an event that did so much to shape my life and career over the course of four decades.

The operative word here is “tried,” because there were times – OK, most of them – when I found Maine’s high school basketball tournament utterly unwatchable.

This is where the footing gets slippery and dangerous. I’m now an outsider, and Maine people (rightfully) resist those “from away” meddling in their affairs. There’s an inherent risk of sounding like a snob simply because I’ve moved to a hoop hotbed and am quick to compare apples and oranges.

Go ahead and do a Google search before you cast those aspersions, because I was on this train for years when I still lived on that side of the tracks. The quality of play in Maine high school hoops has been in slow decline since the turn of the century, but the recent drop has been precipitous, and the resulting crash frightening.

There are plenty of unscientific means to demonstrate this point. Since the primary object of the game remains putting that orange ball through an orange rim that is double its diameter, let’s look at scoring.

In this year’s regional tournament, 11 championship games – more than half – were won with a total of fewer than 50 points, and four beneath 40. Four losing teams didn’t even hit 30.

Now let’s scroll back in 10-year increments. The 2009 percentage of winners under that threshold was about the same – eight of 16, although four of those scored exactly 49 points.

In 1999, five failed to surpass 50. In 1989, one, with the vast majority of winning teams eclipsing 70 or even 80 points. In 1979, two, and they were both girls’ teams in an era when the ladies were new and growing as a Maine Principals’ Association sanctioned sport.

Too many statistics can make us dizzy. In this case, however, they’re important, because old folks have a tendency to romanticize the past without having any basis for it. But my childhood memories of the game I loved most are crisp and clear. It was an era of offensive freedom and creativity, when all five players on the floor were a threat to score in double digits on any given night.

Today, a Maine high school basketball team is fortunate to have more than one player average above 10 points per game for the winter.

The sport in Maine – and sadly, this makes it a microcosm of the state – has become a haven for the one percent. Whatever talent development schedule exists between March and October: a) is geared toward the few players who are anointed from an early age as having the chance to play in college; and b) mostly takes place outside the purview of the high school coach, in part because of short-sighted rules that limit his or her involvement.

By the time those high school teams convene for preseason workouts Thanksgiving week (much too late, I humbly submit), one or two kids have played with some other town’s kids for six months, while the remnant picked up a ball only sporadically in that time. And rarely did that off-season exposure consist of getting up shots in their own driveways or YMCAs, which would have been more beneficial than anything else.

Almost every day during this tournament I read someone on social media lobbying for a shot clock as the panacea for this predicament. Sounds just like society as a whole, expecting technology and/or government to solve problems we’ve created ourselves.

Rushing shots that are already missed two-thirds to three-quarters of the time won’t improve the product. If someone has trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time, you don’t add balancing a tray of cups filled with scalding coffee to their workload.

This is a universal problem that requires across-the-board solutions. Unfortunately many of them are systemic, and therefore difficult to cure.

Athletes need to spend more time working on their offensive skills (this includes, and preferably emphasizes, layups and mid-range jump shots) without any adults in sight.

Coaches in Maine currently play zone defense and micromanage shooting because it is the most efficient way to win games when offensive skills are in the tank. Somehow they must get together for the betterment of all and embrace a more free-wheeling style of play.

Administrators and communities need to make sure gyms are accessible during waking hours all year long. I realize there are “liability issues,” and I know that means responsible adults need to be on call. Find a way.

The sanctioning should relax the reins and create incentive for all these things to happen. An 18-game regular season is absurdly short in Maine. There’s no compelling reason for the tournament to be played before March, or for voluntary team workouts not to be permitted in September and October.

You don’t have to accept this clunky, plodding, shadow of what your marquee winter event used to be. There are non-artificial ways to make it happen, if you want it badly enough.

Or if you don’t think it’s an emergency, travel to a state where these things happen and enjoy the resulting show for a week or two. Then get back to me.